Liberal columnist: Petraeus details may have been withheld for political reasons

Add Washington Post liberal columnist Eugene Robinson to the list of people who think there's something off about the official flow of information in the Petraeus sex scandal.

He writes today that he'll join "the right-wing conspiracy theorists" in their skepticism:

It is inconceivable that FBI agents would skulk around investigating the private life of the CIA director without informing top officials of the bureau and the Justice Department. It was obvious that as soon as [Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper knew, he would have to inform President Obama — and that Clapper would have to make some recommendation about Petraeus’s future. The whole mess surely would come to light.

Tell you what: If the right-wing conspiracy theorists will acknowledge that the scandal wouldn’t have materially affected the outcome of Tuesday’s vote, I’ll admit that it sure looks as if someone decided to keep the White House in the dark until the political season was over.